A gran tricked into taking part in an international money laundering conspiracy has been spared jail.

Khalida Sheikh allowed son-in-law Nouman Tariq to use her bank safety deposit box to store money. Unknown to her, Tariq was at the centre of a gangland banking operation.

Revenue and Customs had Tariq under surveillance, and when Mrs Sheikh’s HSBC safety deposit box was raided in February 2011, nearly £40,000 of cash was found inside.

Manchester Crown Court heard that after Tariq was arrested, Mrs Sheikh began to suspect the cash she had been banking was linked to crime, but went on to make a further deposit.

The 58-year-old grandma-of-six, of Bolton Road, Rochdale, has now been given a nine-month suspended sentence by Judge Michael Leeming after admitting concealing criminal property.

Imran Shafi, defending, said she had been ‘utterly terrified’ of going to jail.

“She didn’t know at the outset when she received these funds that there were in any way questionable, ultimately she suspected they were”, he said.

“There was no benefit to her whatsoever, her motivation was not greed, but simply a natural desire to assist her daughter and her family.

"She has never been a criminal and is very unlikely to break the law again.

"This is a woman of limited intelligence who does not have the resilience of an ordinary woman of her age - a genuinely decent person who was misguided in what she did.”

Mrs Sheikh’s son-in-law, Tariq was part of a network of seemingly legitimate businessmen paid to move cash for organised crime syndicates.

It is believed up to £200m was smuggled by the conspiracy, with much of it passing from villains in Merseyside to Bradford heroin gangs.

Following Tariq’s arrest in 2011, a surveillance team heard his wife Aneela Sheikh, Mrs Sheikh’s daughter, begging him to change his ways.

The recording, made after investigators put a bug in the family car, taped Aneela Sheikh saying: “Please listen to me, don’t do this work...we have small children, why don’t you find a job? I don’t need luxuries, please listen to me - I’m happy with the houses we have got.”

Tariq can be heard replying: “My target is to save up to £200,000 - that’s it.”

The dad-of-four, of Ashley Close, Rochdale, was jailed in November for 27 months after admitting money laundering arrangement between August 2010 and January 2011, and remains behind bars.